Sparklers
by veivei
Summary: "I'm just awkward like that. I can't take care of myself." Mikado confessed with an uncertain smile. "That's why I'm always accompanying you, Mikado-senpai." Aoba beamed at him.
1. Chapter 1

Spoiler warning: 8th volume

**Sparklers 1/3**

"What is this?" Mikado slid the shark mask back from his face and looked at the small brown packets cluelessly, taking one into his hand.

"Weed?" Aoba ventured a guess, attempting to rip one of the packets with his teeth. "Mikado-senpai, you have a knife or something on you?" He looked at Mikado expectantly. "You know, I would carry one but the chances of it being extracted out of my pockets and used against me are too high."

"Uhm... Will this help?" Mikado looked through his pockets and offered him a ballpoint pen.

"You've got to be kidding me." Aoba accepted it with a scowl, his left hand, adorned with a fresh pink scar on both sides, twitching involuntarily. He used its tip to rip the packet and gave it back as if it burned him. Then he sniffed at the contents of the packet. "Weed. So this is the kind of thing Yellow Turbans dabble in nowadays. Sweet."

"Shouldn't we call the police, Aoba-kun?" Mikado asked uncertainly.

"That's one option. But if we just leave this place and call the police with the address, they will never connect it back to our enemies, so what would the point be?"

"It would be taken care of?"

"You know how much that's worth? Let's sell it, Mikado-senpai."

"To whom?" Mikado asked, looking at Aoba incredulously.

"Trust me. I have my ways." Aoba assured him with a smile. "I'll call the boys to bring some car here so we can take it. But let's get out of here now in case someone appears while we're waiting." He slid the shark mask down and peeked out of the door of the small room in an abandoned warehouse, its walls donned in yellow graffiti.

"Aoba-kun, you shouldn't sell drugs." Mikado pointed out, following him closely.

"I guess, that's the general moral stance."

"I mean you shouldn't." Mikado's hand closed around Aoba's thin wrist and squeezed painfully. "Let's just burn it."

"But that's unreasonable, Mikado-senpai..." Aoba was pulled back inside the room, the door shut behind his back with a kick.

"Getting scary on me again?" Aoba asked with a sigh, looking up at Mikado's face questioningly. It was covered by the mask though. Aoba shuddered when his eyes landed on its toothy grin. "At least let's take a few packets in case we'd like to drop them in somebody's things to have them arrested?"

Mikado's response was letting him go and throwing five packets to him. Aoba put them into his bag with a sigh. The union with Dollars wasn't always good for Blue Squares business. Mikado exercised his moral judgment like that as if he was the only person around who could tell right from wrong.

Aoba was of the opinion that it didn't even matter.

Mikado slid the mask off again before taking his lighter out. Aoba's eyes narrowed when he recognized the look in Mikado's eyes. At least setting things on fire transfixed both of them equally.

"I guess we need to get away from here quickly after it starts burning, Mikado-senpai." Aoba pointed out. "Unless you want to stone yourself out of your mind."


	2. Chapter 2

**Sparklers 2/3**

"Done there?" Aoba asked, bending over to catch his breath after having run out of the warehouse. "Mikado-senpai?" He looked at Mikado questioningly.

"I hope it's burning now." Mikado muttered, turning around to look at the building behind their backs. Aoba noticed right away how Mikado was trying to block his view of his left hand.

"It does." Aoba assured him, the sweet scent wafting through the air a better indicator than anything else. "Have you burnt your hand?" He asked, reaching out for Mikado's wrist and prying his hand from behind his back.

"It's nothing..." Mikado assured him uncertainly even as Aoba took his shark mask off and leaned down to examine his hand.

A bottle of water was emptied onto it, making him wince at the sudden cool feeling. He couldn't even remember clearly how he'd burnt it. It had something to do with wanting to move one of the packets that had caught on fire towards the others. Probably he should have used something other than his hand to move it but it hadn't occurred to him in the hurry.

That was essentially how he'd gotten all the consecutive injuries in the past few weeks. Things had been moving too fast and then, all of a sudden, he'd been ending beaten up.

Aoba seemed so much better at evading such accidents, even though he was Mikado's kouhai. Though as far as being a part of a street gang was, their relation was probably exactly inverted. Mikado blushed at the thought and pulled his hand out of Aoba's grasp forcefully.

"Let's get out of here." Aoba pulled on his sleeve to get him to move.

A column of smoke was escaping the warehouse through the roof. Mikado stared over his shoulder, transfixed.

"Mikado-senpai, you'll watch the TV reports on the Internet once you'll get home." Aoba whined at his side. "There's no point in staring at things burn."

"I guess." Mikado followed reluctantly, looking back a few more times.

"You're only so transfixed because it's all new for you." Aoba pointed out with a know-it-all smile as if he had set dozens of warehouses on fire. Mikado couldn't decide if that could have really been the case. "I wonder if Kida-senpai was aware of this. How do you think, Mikado-senpai?"

"Of course not." Mikado replied with an absolute conviction.

"That means what? Yellow Turbans are slipping out of his control yet again? Apparently, he's not working quite as hard as you do, Mikado-senpai."

They pocketed their masks upon reaching a bigger and better-lit street. Mikado stopped to look down at his hand under a street lamp. The palm was reddened and starting to swell.

"You're so inconsiderate, Mikado-senpai." Aoba sighed at his side. "You do what has to be done without looking out for your own safety at all. I'm nowhere near brave like that."

Mikado's injured hand curled into a fist, even though it hurt.

"Stop sugar-coating it like that."

Aoba looked at him strangely, not expecting this kind of outburst.

"I'm just awkward like that." Mikado confessed with an uncertain smile. "I can't take care of myself."

"That's why I'm always accompanying you, Mikado-senpai." Aoba beamed at him.

He really looked quite charming when he was smiling like that.


	3. Chapter 3

**Sparklers 3/3**

"But you don't end up injured like me." Mikado pointed out, stuffing his hand into his pocket and moving on towards the Yamanote Line station.

"If you can't accept this as a result of me being a coward, Mikado-senpai, then I guess..." Aoba sighed and paused to think, reflecting upon how much he really wanted Mikado to know about him and what would serve his interests best. "...There used to be a time back when I was a kid when I was afraid of fire." He spoke up again with an unwavering smile. "If you had given me a lit up match, I would have just dropped it at my feet without thinking about what might have happened out of fear of holding fire in my hand. But then one day... my big brother really got on my bad side. I went into his room and lit up a match myself for the first time in my life and dropped it there. All his belongings burned down. But nobody has ever suspected me because of my fear."

Mikado stopped in the middle of the street.

"Have I scared you, Mikado-senpai?" Aoba asked good-naturedly.

"No..." Mikado shook his head hesitantly. "That's what I'm trying to do myself, I guess." He said softly. "To overcome certain things that stop me from doing what I have to do."

"You're doing great for a beginner." Aoba praised him with a smile.

Mikado blinked. There was something different about Aoba all of a sudden even though his smile hadn't changed one bit.

"It's understandable your control is wavering a bit for now." He continued, approaching Mikado.

Mikado gulped when Aoba's hands closed around his neck all of a sudden.

"Given enough time..." _If you'll ever have it, Mikado-senpai, that's it._ "...you will become as good at these things as I am."

The small hands tightened around his neck and squeezed. Suddenly, Mikado discovered he was unable to breathe. He gripped Aoba's wrists but somehow he wasn't able to pry his hands away from his neck. The strength difference between the two of them couldn't have been big with how both of them looked though he was still taller and...

He forced one eye open even as the surprisingly strong grasp on his neck, considering it was coming from such a small, unthreatening person with a girly face, continued and the pressure was only steadily rising somehow, applied precisely to his windpipe. Aoba was smiling up at him, a shadow of self-assurance he didn't normally display tainting his otherwise cheerful smile.

Aoba only let the older boy go when he was at the very edge of blacking out, determining the moment perfectly. Mikado barely avoided falling down to his knees, swaying sideways into the wall of the nearest building instead and using it to support himself while catching slow labored breaths.

"I didn't really hurt you, Mikado-senpai, but I'm sorry if you were in pain. It was just to illustrate my point." Aoba pointed out merrily.

"I understand." Mikado nodded weakly, touching the abused front of his neck.

What Aoba did screamed 'don't mess with me' as loudly as him stabbing the younger boy's hand but it did so in vastly different ways. The way Mikado himself was dangerous because of his unpredictability, Aoba shouldn't have been messed with precisely because of his control.

They both acknowledged in their minds what a good match they were.

"So, where do we go for dinner, Mikado-senpai? There's a Lotteria nearby." Aoba mused, the incident a moment ago seemingly completely forgotten.

"You're going to wander around some more with *that* in your bag?"

"Sure, why not?" Aoba shrugged. "Why would the police ever get interested in an innocent little boy like me anyway?"

Aoba had a point. Mikado followed him into the restaurant thinking about how his kouhai turned out to be quite an exciting person too, even despite his non-threatening looks.


End file.
